This paper provides an overview of the design and development of the scanning tomographic acoustic microscopy (STAM). This research effort spans over a period of more than 12 years, which successfully elevated the acoustic microscopy from the traditional intensity-mapping mode to the level of holographic and tomographic imaging. The tomographic imaging capability of STAM was developed on the platform of the scanning laser acoustic microscope (SLAM), which operates in a coherent transmission mode with plane-wave illumination and scanning laser wavefield detection. The image formation techniques were based on the backward propagation method implemented in the plane-to-plane format. In this paper, the key elements of the design and development, including the modification of the data-acquisition hardware, implementation of image reconstruction algorithms for multiple-frequency and multiple-angle tomography, and the high-precision phase-correction and image registration techniques for the superposition of coherent sub-images, will be discussed. Results of full-scale experiments will also be included to demonstrate the capability of holographic and tomographic image formation in microscopic scale.